THANKSGIVING AT OVERTON
In spite of the awkwardness of the situation precipitated by the
belligerent newspaper girl, Thanksgiving Day passed off with remarkable
smoothness. Greatly to Grace's surprise, in the morning after Mabel's
arrival at Wayne Hall Kathleen West had appeared in the living-room
where Mabel was holding triumphant court, greeted her with apparent
cordiality, and after remaining in the room for a short time had pleaded
an engagement for the day, and said good-bye.
"Too bad she couldn't stay with us and go to the game, isn't it?" Mabel
had declared regretfully. "I suppose she is obliged to divide her time.
Miss West is so clever. She must be very popular?" she added
inquiringly.
At that moment Elfreda purposely began an account of the latest practice
game in which her team had played, and Mabel, who was an ardent
basketball fan, failed to notice that her questioning comment had been
neither answered nor echoed. To the relief of the four friends the
subject of Kathleen West was not renewed during Mabel's stay, and when,
that night, she went to the station surrounded by a large and faithful
bodyguard, all adverse criticism against the girl for whom she had
spoken was locked within the breasts of the four who knew.
On the Friday after Thanksgiving the first real game between the
freshmen and the sophomore teams took place in the gymnasium. The
freshmen won the game, much to Elfreda's disgust, as she had pinned her
faith on the sophomores. The triumphant team marched around the
gymnasium, lustily singing a ridiculously funny basketball song which it
afterward developed had been composed by none other than Kathleen West.
"Too bad she isn't up to her song," had been Elfreda's dry comment, with
which the other three girls privately agreed.
The Morton House girls issued tickets for a play, which had to be
postponed because the leading man (Gertrude Wells) spent Thanksgiving in
the country and missed the afternoon train to Overton. Nothing daunted,
Arline descended upon Grace, Miriam and Anne, pressed them into service
and sent them scurrying about to the houses and boarding places of the
girls they knew to be at home, with eleventh-hour invitations to a fancy
dress party to be held at Morton Hall in lieu of the play, which had to
be postponed until the following week. Arline had stipulated that the
costumes must be strictly original. Wonderland costumes were to be
tabooed. "If we present the circus again later on we don't want to run
the risk of giving any one the slightest chance to grow tired of seeing
the animals," had been her wise edict.
That night a mixed company of gay and gallant folks danced to the music
of the living-room piano at Morton House. Those receiving invitations
had immediately planned their costumes and by eight o'clock that
evening, resplendent in their own and borrowed finery, were on their way
to the ball. At ten o'clock there had been a brief intermission, when
cakes and ices were served. This had been an unlooked-for courtesy on
the part of Arline, who had plunged recklessly into her month's
allowance for the purchase of the little spread. The ball had lasted
until half-past eleven o'clock, and the participants, after singing to
Arline and rendering her a noisy vote of thanks, had gone home tired and
happy.
Saturday had been devoted to the "odds and ends" of vacation. The
majority of the girls, having stayed in Overton, paid long-deferred
calls, gave luncheons or dinners at Vinton's or Martell's, or, the day
being unusually clear, went for long walks. Guest House was the
destination of a party of girls of whom Grace made one, and which also
included Miriam, Elfreda, Laura Atkins, Violet Darby and half a dozen
other young women who had elected the five-mile walk, supper, and a
return by moonlight. Arline, Anne and Ruth had at the last moment
decided to attend an illustrated lecture on Paris, to be held in the
Overton Theatre that afternoon, with the gleeful prospect of cooking
their supper at Ruth's that evening, an occasion invariably attended
with at least one laughable mishap, as neither Arline's nor Anne's
knowledge of cooking extended beyond the art of boiling water.
On the way back from Guest House the pedestrians had stopped at Vinton's
for a rest and ices. As they trooped in the door, they passed Kathleen
West, accompanied by Alberta Wicks, Mary Hampton, and a freshman whom
Grace had frequently noticed in company with the newspaper girl. Several
of the girls with her bowed to the passing trio, but Grace fancied there
was a lack of cordiality in their salutations. She also imagined she
noticed a fleeting gleam of malice in Alberta Wicks's face as the senior
passed their table. Inwardly censuring herself for allowing any such
impression to creep into her mind, Grace dismissed it with an impatient
little shake of the head.
The walking party indulged in a second round of ices before leaving
Vinton's. Everyone seemed to be in a particularly happy mood, and long
afterward Grace looked back on this night as one of the particular
occasions of her junior year, when everyone and everything seemed to be
in absolute harmony.
All the way home this exalted, elated mood remained with her. She smiled
to herself as she leisurely prepared for bed at the recollection of her
happy evening. Elfreda's sharp, familiar knock on the door caused her to
start slightly, then she called, "Come in!"
"Hasn't Anne come home yet?" asked Elfreda, glancing about her, then,
shuffling across the room in her satin mules, she curled herself
comfortably on the end of Grace's couch, and, surveying Grace with
friendly, half-quizzical eyes, said shrewdly, "Well, what's the latest
on the bulletin board?"
"I don't know," smiled Grace. "I didn't look at the one in the hall and
as for the one over at the college, I haven't paid any attention to it
for the last two days. My letters usually come to Wayne Hall."
Elfreda sniffed disdainfully. "I don't mean either of those bulletin
boards, and you know it, too, Grace Harlowe. I could see danger signals
flying to-night, even if you couldn't. I don't see how you could have
missed them." She eyed Grace searchingly, then said, with conviction, "I
don't believe you did miss them. They were too plain to be missed."
Grace hesitated, then said frankly: "To tell you the truth, Elfreda, I
did fancy for a moment that Miss Wicks favored me with a very peculiar
look. Then I decided it to be a case of imagination on my part. Those
girls haven't troubled us this year. I don't know----" she began slowly.
Elfreda interrupted her with an emphatic: "That is just what I've been
telling you. That's what I mean by danger signals. Those two girls will
never forgive you for making them ridiculous the night they locked me in
the haunted house. Last year they had to content themselves with simply
being disagreeable, because they could find no particularly weak spot in
our sophomore armor. They accomplished very little with Laura Atkins and
Mildred Taylor. This year it's different." Elfreda paused to give full
effect to her words. Then she ended slowly and impressively: "Don't
think I'm trying to court calamity, but I am certain that perky little
newspaper woman, as she styles herself, is going to prove a thorn in
your side. You had better write to Mabel and explain matters, then leave
Miss Kathleen West alone. She hasn't spoken to you since the day of the
bazaar, so I can't see that your junior counsel is of any particular use
to her."
"Still, it seems a shame to give up; besides, it is the first thing
Mabel ever asked me to do," demurred Grace.
"I know, I've thought of that," continued Elfreda a little impatiently.
"But I don't think you are justified in wasting your whole year's fun
worrying about some one who isn't worth it. If Mabel knew, she would be
the first one to indorse what I have just said."
"I'm not wasting my year, Elfreda mine," contradicted Grace
good-naturedly. "Just think what a nice time we had to-night! And I'm
getting along splendidly with all my subjects. I belong to the Semper
Fidelis Club, and am having the jolliest kind of times with you girls.
That doesn't sound much like wasting my year, does it?"
"I didn't say you had wasted it," retorted Elfreda gruffly. "I said, or
rather intended to say, that you would be likely to waste it. You are
the sort of girl who ought to have the best Overton can offer,
because--well--because you deserve it. You think too much about other
people, and not enough about yourself," she concluded shortly.
"What a selfish Elfreda," laughed Grace, walking across the room and
sitting down beside the stout girl, whose round face looked unusually
severe. "One might think Elfreda Briggs never did an unselfish act in
all her twenty-two years. Now I am going to give you a piece of your own
advice. Stop worrying--about me. Whatever my just desserts are, they'll
overtake me fast enough. Hurrah! Here is our little Anne. Did you have a
nice time, dear, and what did you cook for supper?"
"I always have a nice time at Ruth's," smiled Anne, "but, if you had
seen the three cooks all trying to spoil the broth and succeeding beyond
their wildest expectations, you would have been greatly edified."
"I can imagine Arline Thayer gravely bending over that little gas stove
of Ruth's," said Grace.
"She had all sorts of splendid ideas about what we might make, but no
one had the slightest idea as to how to make anything she proposed."
"I am afraid none of us would ever set the world on fire as cooks,"
observed Elfreda with sarcasm.
"Where's Miriam?" asked Anne, slipping out of her coat and unpinning her
hat.
"Writing to her mother," returned Elfreda. "Now tell us what you
cooked."
Frequent bursts of laughter arose as Anne described Arline's valiant
attempt at making a Spanish omelet from a recipe in a cook-book she had
purchased that very day for twenty-five cents at the little book store
just below the campus. "It was called the 'Model Housewife,' but the
omelet was really a dreadful affair," continued Anne. "Then I let the
potatoes boil dry and they scorched on the bottom, and no one knew how
to make a cream dressing for the peas.
"Ruth made a Waldorf salad. We had a bottle of dressing, thank goodness.
And Arline made coffee, which she really does know how to make. We had
olives and pickles and cakes, and two dozen of those cunning little
rolls from that German bakery down the street. So we really managed to
get enough to eat after all. There wasn't much left except the omelet,
and no one wanted that."
"I don't suppose it would be of the least use to propose tea," said
Grace innocently.
"Well, of course, if you insist," declared Elfreda politely.
At this juncture Miriam appeared in the door. "I thought I'd drop in for
a minute. You were making so much noise I suspected that a tea party was
in progress," she said significantly.
"We were just talking about making tea," declared Anne. "In fact, I was
on the point of remarking that tea was really the one thing needed to
complete our happiness."
A little gust of laughter greeted this pointed remark. It echoed down
the hall, and was carried through the half-opened door of the room at
the end, where a girl sat busily engaged in writing a theme. She lay
down her pen, listened for a moment, then went on writing, a sarcastic
little smile playing about her lips. But in her eyes flashed two danger
signals.